St Albans MP Anne Main has been selected by MPs as chair of the new all-party parliamentary group (APPG) on sustainable clothing and textiles.

Mrs Main’s new group is supported by Hubbub, the sustainability charity, and will look at sustainability in the materials we use, as our society becomes more conscious about our use of plastic substitutes and the impact this has had on our environment.

“Fast fashion and the casual disposing of clothing worn only once or twice is certainly a big issue for us to look at, but this group is going to be focused on so much more”, said Mrs Main. “As we become more and more conscious of the impact of plastic waste in our landfill sites and in the oceans, one of the biggest problems with that is the plastic substitutes used in our clothing and textiles. This is something that we need to have a serious conversation about and I hope this group will be able to do that.”

Mrs Main sought to create this group following the publication of the government’s response to the Environmental Audit Committee’s recent report titled ‘Fixing fashion: clothing consumption and sustainability’.

The APPG’s first meeting yesterday was attended by many senior figures in the fashion and retail industry, including H&M, Tesco and Arcadia Group. Attendees all had the opportunity to engage in conversation about this issue and will have the chance to feed into the group’s call for evidence in the next few weeks.

Following the meeting, Anne said: “I am delighted to be voted in to chair this group and I hope we can help to shine a spotlight on this important topic. We need to have a proper debate about the trade-offs of using man-made materials instead of sustainable natural products and only by seeking evidence and asking difficult questions are we going to get there.”

The group plans to take evidence from stakeholders over the next few weeks and will look to publish a report in due course.